The damning of Henry Morgan

About the book

The young surgeon, his forbidden love, the inquisitor, or the pirate –

who will pay the price for damning Henry Morgan?

Saved from the Inquisition, thrown into slavery to write the only eyewitness account of pirate battles in the Caribbean, can this ruthlessly manipulated French surgeon survive a world of mayhem and torture to be reunited with his first love? Will his unique tale, cynically twisted and distorted, discredit his friend, Henry Morgan, infamous Admiral of the Brethren of the Coast? Or will another soul be damned?

The damning of Henry Morgan is the latest historical fiction novel from Nigel Holloway. It tells the story of the only eye-witness account of pirate exploits during the relatively short period of history when nations jostled for control of the New World. But why was it written at all? And even more intriguing - why was the writer there, in lawless Tortuga, when under normal circumstances he would be leading a safe (if relatively mundane) life as a local doctor in France?

There is no definitive answer to these questions, but The damning of Henry Morgan attempts to fill in the blanks - the holes in history - and to give an explanation as to why the book was written, and how it was used in a game of international high politics, in which the winners stood to gain the riches of the New World, and the loser to forfeit his immortal soul.